Staunton River Camping and Fishing

I had plans to take my son to Georgia for a Get together for  some Camping, Canoeing/fishing and to see some old friends but the weather did not cooperate. The Flint was too high to float so we had to look for an alternate plan close to home. The first place that came to mind was the Staunton River and the Staunton River State park in Virginia. Now, I have fished the Staunton before  but not down this low. This would be new water to me. Here is a view of the entrance as we arrived on 6/22 around lunchtime.

The visitor station was a very nice place with a very helpful staff plus they had plenty of merchandise if you left something at home or didn't want to drive the 20 minutes to the nearest Wal-Mart!

 Plus, they are open to 10 pm and they don't lock the gate at this campground so if you do need to run into town late at night you can. Here is a view of the visitor station and the pool beside it.

Both are Top-Notch facilities.

Here is a view of our camping spot.

This campground is the nicest I have been in so far. It is a meca for the fisherman because you have the choice of 2 ramps. 1 on the Dan river arm of Kerr Lake where you can launch and either run up the Dan river or run down to the main lake. 2. You can launch on the Staunton river arm of the lake and run up the Staunton river or go to the main lake. We chose to spend all of out time on the Staunton side. Here is a view of that ramp.

Left takes you up into the River and into some backwater areas and right takes you to the main lake. We launched at 4pm and headed upriver.

This is part of an old pumping staion that was used for the campground. This is no longer needed now as the Park is now on City water.

Mack N. started off throwing a frog and I started off with a chartreuse spinnerbait since the water was high and muddy. The spinnerbait was getting hits from some fat chunky bass so it didn't take him long to change to a spinnerbait as well. We were getting hits by throwing at Willow trees and the hits were about every 30 yds down the bank.  Most were 1 1/2 lbs to 2 1 /2 lbs but Mack Nicholas caught 1 that went just over 4 lbs. Here are a few of those pictures.

We left biting bass to go catch bait for a night of catfishing. Our bait of choice would be either Bream and/or White Perch.  We used 2 rods for this, both ultralites. 1 was rigged with a 1/2 oz  bell sinker on bottom with 2 gold hooks spaced 6 inches apart above the sinker. The 2nd one had a splitshot just above a cricket hook . We tipped each hook with a piece of nightcrawler.  Hits were many and often, catching all the white perch we cared to catch and a few bream and 2 shell crackers as well.

This is a picture (a poor one but you can get the idea) of the 2 bottom rigs we used for White Perch.

You can use sabiki rigs for them or the rig I used with the 2 gold hooks does well even with 4,5, or 6 hooks spaced a few inches apart. Tip each hook with just a piece of worm.

Right before dark we started catfishing. The hits were few and far between. At aprox 10pm it started raining hard and I thought Mack N. would want to call it quits for the night but he wanted to stay, so we stayed until 2am with it raining the whole time. Thank goodness for Frogg Toggs!.. We did manage a  couple of Blue cats with the  biggest at maybe 5 lbs. Both caught on cutbait sprayed with Bang Garlic Spray on a7/0 circle hook with a 3 oz bank sinker.  This is a picture of the rig I like.

The next day we launched again around 4pm and headed upriver to do some exploring.
Here is a short video of us and the Scanoe running up the muddy Staunton.

We went back to our spot where the white perch were biting yesterday and they were still there. We caught more than just white perch though,  We would catch a perch then the next fish would be either a BlueCat or Channel that weighed 3/4 up to maybe 1lb 4oz. These were actually pretty fun to catch on ultralites. They were hitting the same rigs as yesterday tipped with a piece of night crawler. Right at dark we started catfishing. Bites were few and far between again. These catfish have to be spawning. I have got reports of them spawning this week too. The biggest that night was an aprox10 lb channel cat that hit a piece of cutbait. There were very bad clouds in the distance but the skies above us were clear and we could see the Big Dipper. We were treated to  an awesome lightning storm display in the sky miles away towards Brookneal or Alta Vista. Here is  a picture of one of the many small cats we caught and then the biggest which may have gone 9-10 lbs

Dont Say it!  I know I look drunk,  but I am just dog tired. We did set out 10 jugs after catching this fish and didn't get 1 bite on a jug.

Summary of the conditions and equipment  used:

Boat- Colemane Scanoe w/ 2.5 hp Mercury
Bait- Live white perch and cut bait for bigger Cats, night crawlers for white perch, small cats and panfish.
Outfits used for Cats- Ambassaduer 6500 with 30 lb big game line on White Ugly Stik, Ambassadeur 7000 loaded with 40 lb Cajun line on 8' American Spirit Night Stick. We also had a Shimano 6500 baitrunner w/ 25 lb Ande on a 7 ft Uglystick Tiger rod but we didn't use that one.
Outfits for panfish- 2 Ultra lites w 4lb line.

Kerr Lake Level- 301.2 ,  1.2 feet up from normal level of 300 ft above sea level
Staunton Flow at Randolph gauge- Aprox 3000 cfm, avg for ths time of year is aprox 1500 cfm.



All in all it was a good 3 day trip. Hopefully we will make it back next year when the Walleye run up from the lake. Thanks , Mack

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